Ramsey Clark was the Attorney General in the Lyndon Johnson administration from 1965-1967, where he was best known for his role in the Civil Rights movement, in which he supervised the drafting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
I received an e-mail from him this morning on behalf of
ImpeachBush.org, in which he explains why George Bush must be impeached, and urging us to support the
March on the Pentagon this Saturday.
On the general issue of impeachment, he notes that:
The authors of the Constitution were serious about impeachment and intended that the carefully prescribed procedures and principles for impeachment written into the text be faithfully executed… No other issue is treated with such detail and care in the Constitution.
They knew the power of impeachment had liberated England from the tyranny of the King. That history described impeachment as “The chief instrument for the preservation of government” and “the most powerful weapon in the political armory, short of civil war.”
Then he goes on to explain several reasons why George Bush must be impeached, some which I summarize here:
To prevent further escalation and expansion of warThe current war in Iraq (and elsewhere) will become embedded and spread to Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan or other nations Bush may attack…
A great American, Robert Drinan… introduced a Bill of Impeachment against Richard Nixon for ordering the bombing of Cambodia in 1973. Cambodia was a neutral nation. This was a murderous crime. Had the Congress acted on that bill, rather than the comparatively minor offense of the Watergate break-in, Presidents after Nixon would have been more cautious about authorizing armed aggression against other nations and George W. Bush might not have dared attack Iraq which posed no threat to the U.S.
To prevent escalation of nuclear armsGeorge W. Bush will
increase U.S. nuclear armaments and missile defense leading to nuclear proliferation,
a nuclear arms race, and cold war… Even while Bush threatens Iran and North Korea and warns others that they must not take any action to obtain nuclear weapons, or the ability to make them, he is upgrading U.S. nuclear weapons systems and developing a new generation of nuclear weapons primarily for tactical uses in war or to destroy selected targets in foreign countries. This is a direct violation of U.S. obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which the U.S. ratified more than a third of a century ago.
Bush will continue to propagandize his War on Terror… creating fear and international tensions that will enable him to violate international laws including the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution of the United States. He will maintain the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and ignore clear international and U.S. Constitutional rights of prisoners there and in secret prisons in other countries. He will continue to authorize torture of prisoners; motivate and cover up violations of the rights of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals using the Patriot Act to obtain confidential information on people illegally, and other vehicles…
To re-establish the rule of law in the United StatesBush will continue to cause, or tolerate serious violations of U.S. law as in the I. Louis Libby case… He will cause and condone the removal of United States Attorneys from office, if they fail to protect political friends of his Administration in violation of law. At least eight U.S. Attorneys have been wrongfully dismissed for political reasons. It is not known how many of the other 84 U.S. Attorneys retained their offices by illegally submitting to political pressure to protect interests of friends of the Bush Administration corrupting the rule of law.
To halt continuing damage to our countryBush will continue to damage the United States by failing to provide competent government services including medical care for the 20,000-30,000 seriously wounded veterans of his Iraq war even at the flagship Walter Reed Hospital, FEMA services in Louisiana and other Gulf States after hurricane Katrina, and through his own travels in Europe, South America, and elsewhere, to nations where the people do not welcome him, where he is met with angry crowds and requires unprecedented protection…
Concluding remarks We must make the Members of the House of Representatives become as serious and courageous about the power of impeachment as the Founding Fathers were… I urge you to join the March on the Pentagon on March 17, if at all possible. It can be the turning point to impeachment. I’ve believed for forty years that the October 1967 March on the Pentagon was the turning point to the withdrawal from Vietnam. I felt the power of the desire for peace within the marchers from inside the Pentagon that time. It was palpable and inspiring.
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